Today is the day we see the world renowned San Diego Zoo. Of course, our zoo, the Riverbanks Zoo, has garnered acclaim of its own, so the bar has been set. Before we get there, though, we want to check out the Coronado bridge, a high bridge that leads to, where else, Coronado. We also have quite a bridge, the Cooper River bridge, back home. How will San Diego compare?
The Coronado bridge is indeed high, but not much higher than the Cooper River bridge, truth be told. Plus, the Cooper River bridge is a suspension bridge, so it wins the bridge competition. The Coronado bridge does afford an AWESOME view of the city of San Diego, and that made it all worth while.
We made it to the zoo around 9 o'clock. It was sunny and cool. Parking was easy, there was no wait for tickets, and the one day pass was good for the bus tour. At the entrance to the tour, there was a Macaw, just perched there to welcome us. The bus had two levels and we sat on the top. It took about thirty minutes to complete the tour and we saw all kinds of animals, and the ariel view afforded us atop the bus was unique and fun. The San Diego Zoo is amazing. At one point, as we were walking through one of the three open air aviaries, I thought they could lose the animals and the place would still make a great garden. The weather allowed the animals to be very active, which is something missing in the heat and humidity of Riverbanks Zoo. The polar bear enclosure, which is just one of the many animals not featured back home, had a glass wall for underwater bear viewing. The hippo enclosure had the same type of viewing area, which made me feel like I was seeing the hippo for the first time in my life. When we got off the skyfari, which was yet another way to cross from one side of the zoo to the other, the ramp down to the main path lead directly over an enclosure with small deerlike animals. And as if the Macaw at the bus tour and then these animals at the skyfari weren't enough to make us feel surrounded by wildlife, while we ate lunch outside at a patio restaurant, both a mother duck and mother peacock approached our table, complete with little ones in tow. Incredible.
Now it's time for the Panda paragraph. This zoo has pandas. Crazy, but true. The panda enclosure was the only one in the zoo that had a line. Seriously, a line to look at some animals. So we stood in line for the chance to watch a panda eat some bamboo. They are neat animals. We learned that NO PANDAS, no matter where they are born, belong to anyone except China. China has the panda thing on lockdown. We took some pics and left. Other notable animal enclosures:
The zoo has two meerkat enclosures, which are 10 times as big as the one at Riverbanks. The zoo had two different types of elephants, African and Asian. They had rhinos, sun bears, and tapirs, which we had never seen before, but they did NOT have an aquarium or penguins. Chalk one up for Riverbanks.
We did see a sea lion, in the one and only animal show we checked out. The show opened with doves flying over the crowd and included a wolf and dog duo. But it wasn't an animal show as much as it was a conservation message. The line that stuck with us - "Go explore our natural world, remembering to take only pictures and leave only footprints".
After seven and a half hours at the zoo, we realized the hardest thing about the visit would be trying to drag our exhausted bodies back to the parking lot. We then drove four hours to Bakersfield. The Pacific was beautiful from the highway. We reached Los Angeles at sunset and saw the city through the famous LA haze. It was neat. I noticed that the interstate signs had razor wire wrapped around the support posts here, presumably to keep people from spray painting graffiti on them. We were elated to reach Mark and Chris's house and some well-deserved time away from driving. What does the next week have in store for us? We can't wait to find out.
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